Vehicle manufacturers are actively working to develop alternative powertrain systems that reduce dependency on gasoline as well as reduce the level of pollutants exhausted into the air by vehicles equipped with conventional internal combustion engines. To that end, vehicle manufactures have been developing powertrain systems that employ electric wheel motors to generate motive power. These electric wheel motors can reduce or eliminate the need for a gasoline powered engine thereby improving fuel economy and reducing emissions. However, drawbacks have been noted with such electric wheel motors, including packaging constraints due to a large size of the wheel motor and durability issues associated with control devices and the like being disposed external to the wheel motor assembly.
Accordingly, there remains a need in the art for an improved wheel motor assembly that overcomes the aforementioned and other disadvantages.